Lesotho's regulator opens the study that will shape the next electricity tariff.

For a large power user taking supply in Lesotho, the work that will shape the next electricity tariff is now on the public record. The Lesotho Electricity and Water Authority has posted a notice headed "Press Release on the electricity cost of service study and tariffs validation workshop", created and last updated on 27 August 2026.

Read together, the two named steps describe a sequence rather than a single event: establish what it costs to serve each class of customer, then put that finding to the parties it affects before anything is fixed.

The authority is the body that decides what the national utility may charge. It was established under the "Lesotho Electricity Authority (LEA) Act. No. 12 of 2002 as amended", it regulates the country's electricity supply industry, and it issues the tariff determinations that bind the Lesotho Electricity Company. It also maintains the approved schedule of electricity charges, including what the utility may levy for energy and for maximum demand across the 2024-25 and 2025-26 financial years.

Assessment: for an industrial site, the figure that decides the bill is not the headline percentage but the share of system cost allocated to its own class, and a cost of supply study is where that allocation is argued. The implication is that a validation stage is the narrow point at which a connected customer can see the method before it hardens into a determination and a price path.

For large power users, a cost of supply study is the stage at which the assumptions behind your bill are still movable, and the validation step is the short window in which they can be questioned. It is worth asking the regulator when that workshop sits and whether customers in your demand band may attend or file written comment, and worth checking whether your supply agreement passes an approved tariff change straight through to you. The date on which the next determination is issued is the one to put in the diary, rather than the percentage it eventually carries.